mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

vincent smith

Last Push. We have the weekend and then HTTV's kickstarter closes. If you just want a book this is fastest and least expensive route (not counting going to an MGoEvent or tracking me down when there's a box in my car). If you want the Fingerguns shirt…

…this is your opportunity. If you want your annual purchase of HTTV stuff to go to a good cause, get in on the kickstarter, because a dollar of book orders and $5 of your t-shirt orders go to Vincent Smith's #EATING charity, which will be starting an urban garden in Flint. Pass along to friends, family, family friends, and anyone you have knowingly shared a "Harbaugh? Harbaugh." with this past year.

A lineman reviews Jake Rudock. Spath came up with a really cool idea for analysis videos: watch some Rudock film with a former player. The player he dug up was Doug Skene. The game was Iowa-Wisconsin. I plan to draw up a couple of them—would like an end analysis. One thing that stood out is he uncharacteristically went deep a lot—against Sojourn Shelton(!) #KirkFerentzTrollsIowaFans

This should be a video. Wolverine Devotee found all the Michigan punt and kick returns since 1948; unfortunately he put them in a chart instead of going down to Bentley, pouring through reels of film, and creating a Youtube of them. We'll just have to watch this one again:

Raindrops on roses and Katzenmoyer missin's. Dez in the pose and that punter needs mittens. 46 falling and sadface Germaine; that's why I watch this again and again.

Is it really that weird that Michigan hasn't had a kick or punt return touchdown in years? No.

Give Norfleet back two of three TDs he's had called back by insano refs calling ticky tack things that had no bearing on those plays and this is like any other era. The rich times were the early '90s, when Dwyane Ware blocked two within weeks, and Derrick Alexander co-existed with the guy who literally won a Heisman for being so good at returns. With return TDs such a rarity across history, two in a season is good, and more than three would be a record. Add the spread punt, which turned half of would-be punt return attempts into fair catches, and I'd bet you a lot of teams are on similar droughts.

WD also did a turf/grass/field turf study if you're nerdy enough to care about that. The only part that really interested me was dates for the different types of surfaces at the Big House:

Five Star Characters. Vincent Smith's event happened. In a Q&A Smith shared his favorite block ever was getting concussed by J.J. Watt, and led us to believe for about a minute he was going to make comparisons between Rodriguez and Hoke. Sometime after Brian left to catch a bunch of highly padded MSU students stand lazily in front of a net and get a hundred pucks shot at them, a bunch of former and current players showed up: Willie Henry, Thomas Rawls, Justice Hayes, Al Backey, Christian Bryant, and Floyd Simmons, with whom I shared the Never Forget banner. Campbell was a hit. The shot above is Big Will making a show of excitement over Thomas "Jimmy" Rawls. Then he acquired a newborn, because every iphone collection needs a giant teddy bear in a casquette holding a baby.

More importantly Vince and Will and the rest helped raise several thousand to go toward a new community garden in Flint.

Derrick Walton

Explanation: Again with the all-time great, but there’s a specific reason. As much as Burke was our best player in ages, he actually struggled at times as a freshman with running the ball screen offense in part due to his size. I think that was what we hoped to see Walton adjust to as a sophomore but he struggled in some of the similar ways that Burke did (height, explosiveness, inconsistent big men, etc.). Watching how Burke adapted and ran a masterful offense as he became a sophomore is what Walton should look at – with realistic expectations obviously being far short of POY results.

Also Considered: Daniel Horton, Gary Grant, Demetrius Calip

It's kinda like "YMRMFSPA" in the recruit previews. The usefulness is limited since we're restricted to a small sample size of Michigan players people other than Craig Ross remembers. Burke comparisons for Walton are bountiful, and still unfair. Trey came in a scorer who liked going to the rim, and became an excellent distributor (and Kobe Assist-er) as a natural extension of his ability to attack the basket more so than mastery of the two-guard offense. Watch where these assists come from:

Also the subs we had. That was so crazy you guys.

Walton came in better at distribution and I think with a leap forward from his scoring game that'll really shine. His handle is fantastic but that toe kept him from being able to attack the lane; the same second he would have to stop and make a pass is when the shooting pain would hit.

A penny for a shot at a twenty. The other diary this week was Lanknowsarguing with me about burned redshirts. After much discussion I declare points 1, 2, 3, 8, and 11 ancillary considerations that shouldn't affect the decision except in extreme situations, and all the other points wholly incorrect, and he conceded that it's okay to redshirt quarterbacks and offensive linemen if you don't need them. There's no need to go in there if you're planning to call his stupid points stupid—MaizeandBlueWahoo has the official fisk in the thread—but I'm all for attempts to pick holes in my arguments.

Same guy who started the above thread also asked whether adults should be wearing team jerseys, which, and when. I have given this a lot of thought over years of mainstream sports fandom and have come up with a few personal tastes.

Everyone likes the kid who wears team gear, at least until high school demands a higher level of sophistication. For adults however I have created this handy formula: Take the number of times you thought the player is awesome while he's playing for your team, plus the number of times you expect you'll think the player is awesome in the future while playing for your team times 0.5. For college player also do this again for his pro career divided by 30. Divide the result by the number of people you will ever encounter who own that jersey. Then multiply by the percentage of people you expect to be around that day who are fans of that team, and subtract from this a percentage point for every year you've lived past 14. Add and subtract circumstantial percentage points as you choose.

The highest score on the Seth-o-Meter ever achieved was a guy who wore a Brookens jersey (and accompanying handlebar mustache) to Comerica Park before Tommy was re-hired by the Tigers. The lowest score ever was a 400-pound dude wearing a Yankees A-Rod jersey to a Mets game. The highest score at a Michigan game is:

Several large bright objects have been reported in the skies above Ann Arbor this week. One is almost certainly this "Sun" the ancients were always going on about. But before we declare spring and release the frisbee people from their hibernation deep inside North Face jackets, we should rule out several other possibilities, like:

in LSAClassof2000's seasonal four factors table, and that before losing Walton and LeVert, this season wasn't likely to end in the dance. Once those guys were out too, the step-back year because the Year of the Albrecht.

He has another left, but I think this season will go down as, metaphorically, the Spike one. They are too short, overlooked, worse offensively than they look, prone to the mistakes one makes when trying to do things outside the realm of normal basketball, and once in awhile pull something outside the realm of normal basketball:

click for Ace's gif

The artistry of Albrecht is the ridiculousness of the feint. In the above Spike takes two steps like he's about to posterize Ravote Rice. Unless they installed a trampoline in Chicago, Spike's Michael Jordan imitation will fall several feet below the rim. But Rice's brain isn't prepared for Albrecht to attempt this, because Albrechts don't attempt this, so Ravonte's body automatically does the thing it's been taught to.

When Spike would dribble the baseline you'd have two posts watching him whiz by like "is he serious?" And yet their bodies have been taught to twitch angrily at such attacks from far more plausible people. Because Spike was a sideshow, it took a year of this before coaches finally taught the collapsing guy to go for the steal instead of challenging the front of the basket.

Spike's shtick is the basketball version of that time Gardner took an Ohio State defender off his feet with a pump fake to nobody. You take advantage of the fact that a defender is a tightly wound spring of muscle memory. But it's not sustainable. In today's game Spike feinted like he was coming off a double on Dekker, then popped back on him and forced a turnover to help Michigan claw back in it in the 2nd half.

A Meatball All Covered With Cheese

sprinkle sprinkle!

Specifically one off the bat of one Sierra Romero. She's hitting .545 with 30 RBI in 55 at bats. Meanwhile the pitchers went through the first half of the season—all spent on the road because that's life as a northern team these days—with a 1.62 ERA.

Michigan is ranked #4 in the country, with two losses to #1 Florida, and a loss to Arizona State. The home opener is a doubleheader tomorrow vs. Kent State, and some MGoCrew are trying to make it out there for Sunday afternoon.

If you're going to follow this season, you need to know about the pizza. No, this is not a Gittleson diet; it's the most charming thing in Michigan sports since that rainbow smiling Iowa safety ankle breaking dude. Via junior catcher Lauren Connell:

We began to call Lindsay Montemarano "Monte Pizza" after she went on and on about all the reasons why New York pizza is better than Midwest pizza, as she deems herself a pizza expert. Every time Monte Pizza got on base, we would "Sprinkle the cheese" in the dugout, and thus, a new Team 38 tradition was born. Soon, we were sprinkling the cheese for everybody after a nice hit. We then rediscovered our love for the greatest food item on Earth as it quickly became the topic of all jokes and Instagram captions. Throughout the course of the season, we have developed a system involving pizza for singles, doubles, triples and home runs

Single they roll out the dough. Double they sprinkle cheese. Triples they make it rain pepperonis. She who hits it out gets to come home to sprinklers, and…

she *CHOMP* eats the pizza.

Michigan has 44 pizzas this season, nine of which the work of Romero.

Most Harbaughs Since Harbaugh

1985 quarterbacks, courtesy of John Kryk

WD noticed that the roster this year will include more QBs (walk-ons too) than any season since 1985. It makes sense since the roster was pretty bare when Harbaugh assumed the starting job in 1984, so this was the reload. In the comments markusr2007 tracked the '84 depth issues to when Steve Smith was the apparent starter for the foreseeable future, putting a dent in recruiting behind him. I'm sure Harbaugh appreciated the situation then, and certainly appreciates the value of QB depth and competition now.

My friend is married to Kyle Anderson, who saw the post and said there weren't really that many guys competing for the job since a few of them were playing other positions that season, and he himself was on crutches. Cernak was the nominal backup to Harbaugh but he'd looked pretty overwhelmed at the end of '84. One guy not on WD's list was Mike Gillette, who was listed as "QB/P" on the official roster.

Fred Jackson has been a fixture at Michigan going back not one but two undefeated seasons. He arrived in 1992 to join Gary Moeller's staff. Since then, including a two-season stint as Lloyd Carr's first offensive coordinator, Jackson coached (and showered superfluous praise upon) over 100 running backs.

This site has correctly pointed out numerous flaws in the RBs over the last few seasons. It's difficult to diagnose what's coaching and what's just a certain back's ability. Every time we run into Vincent Smith, which is often, either Brian or I have pestered him about why nobody else can block like he could, and Vince just smiles and says "it's hard." Jackson himself has said that vision and ability are nature, blocking is a mentality, and the most he can really do is teach them whom to block.

Best Backs of the Jackson Era

Player

Yds

YPA

Mike Hart

5,040

4.97

Anthony Thomas

4,472

4.84

Chris Perry

3,696

4.56

Tyrone Wheatley

3,630

5.28

Tshimanga Biakabutuka

2,810

5.95

Ricky Powers*

2,554

4.86

Fitzgerald Toussaint

2,290

4.49

Clarence Williams

1,986

4.25

Chris Howard

1,876

4.49

Brandon Minor

1,658

5.01

B.J. Askew

1,580

4.61

*Powers had another 1,945 yds at 5.07 YPA prior to Jackson's arrival

His results are mixed; Jackson coached four of the top ten leading rushers in school history (and his guys blocked for a fifth). On the other hand only two of his guys—Wheatley and Biakubutuka—cracked 5 yards per carry for their careers, a feat accomplished by nine of the guys coached by Jackson's predecessor Tirrell Burton.

What isn't hard to find is effusive praise about Jackson as a person and as a coach, from his former wards to high school coaches across Michigan. Like the coaches of Canham's era, Fred is a permanent fixture of the Michigan Athletic Department, a relationship that goes back to when Fred was Rick Leach's quarterbacks coach in high school.

The thing that really kept Jackson here through the tenure of four coaches was his ability to recruit the state of Michigan. There was a time when Michigan barely had to work to get homegrown kids, when Michigan Replay was the best access most local coaches had to any college football program, and the local press ignored anyone else. Today the in-state rival is on a roll, and there are as many Saban/Perles/Duffy/Dantonio guys in the state's coaching ranks as there are Michigan dudes. While Michigan's mainstream beat has four Rosenbergs trying to make a name for themselves at the expense of the program for every Angelique, the Spartans own an army of slappies. The current generation of recruits were born after the peak of Carr, and can only remember a few crazy 4-point wins over Notre Dame as great Michigan moments.

This month, Jackson retired, the position he held for 23 years going to one of his first acolytes at Michigan. I choose not to let such a career pass quietly. I also choose not to review his career statistically, or at least not by utter performance. Rather, I'd like to chart our way through this long career in simple carries. Full data is here.

The bar graphs after the jump don't tell a story; they're there help jog the stories of so many storied running backs and fullbacks to come through here since I was 12.

[After the jump, a review of the backs in the Time of Jackson and the carry distribution between them from game to game.]

Finishing out the series looking back on the 2009 recruiting class, here's a look at the non-quarterback offensive players, as described in Brian's recruiting posts of yore. But first...

My Bad, Cam

While I remembered to include then-OL, future-NT Quinton Washington on the defensive side of the ball, I forgot to do the same for Cam Gordon, the future defensive positional nomad who came to Michigan with most recruiting services considering him a wide receiver. As Gordon's recruitment wore on, it became more clear that his best spot may actually be in the defensive back seven, and thus we got one of the odder player comps I've seen:

Jason Avant, or maybe Prescott Burgess

Why Avant or Burgess? Bulky 6'2" wide receiver who will push 215 and lacks deep speed == Avant. Rangy linebacker who needs to put on 20 pounds, switch positions (sort of) and probably struggle with the mental part of being a college linebacker for a while == Burgess.

Free safety wasn't mentioned, because only an insane, desperate person would put a player matching that profile on the last line of defen--AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHHH. (Thank you, Denard, forever and always.)

Gordon ended his career as a backup outside linebacker and situational defensive end. Fire Tony Gibson again, just in case.

The Blue Darter

As for prospects who actually ended up at receiver, Michigan had two: consensus top-200 prospect Je'Ron Stokes, and a high school single-wing quarterback who—despite being an Army All-American—earned four-star status on just one site due to his diminutive stature.

PEAK MIXTAPE WEEZY WITH A KEVIN FEDERLINE REFERENCE.
HOW DID IT GET SO LATE SO SOON?

Though everyone pegged Jeremy Gallon as a pure slot ninja—he'd prove to be much more, obviously—the eye-opening highlights and strong Army week performance earned him plenty of hype:

Gallon is a Swiss Army knife of a player: pocket-sized, versatile, capable of surprising feats, and… uh… hard to tackle. (If you've ever tried to tackle a Swiss Army knife you know what I'm talking about. They're pointy.) It's hard to envision a scenario in which one of his diverse and sundry talents doesn't find him on the field, if not this fall than next.

Brian, I'd like to hear more about your past attempts to ... tackle ... pocket knives.

As for Stokes...

When Je'Ron Stokes committed to Michigan I was in an airport about to board a plane for Egypt by way of Germany, and as soon as he did I logged off and forgot all about him. Ever since when something reminds me of that commitment, it's like a weird bonus: oh, yeah, that universally-praised wide receiver in the class I never remember. He's like a ghost recruit.

Oh Damn, Fitz

From 2008-09, I worked as an intern at The Wolverine, and one of my primary tasks during football season was posting the stats of Michigan's commits each week. A back from Ohio's Division V Youngstown Liberty by the name of Fitzgerald Toussaint committed a few months before I got that job, so week after week that fall I'd look up his stats, bug out my eyes, and get incrementally more excited for him to see the field at U-M:

Fitzgerald Toussaint, Youngstown Liberty: Senior RB and Michigan recruit went over 250 yards for the seventh week in a row in a 33-28 win over Hubbard. After generating 16 yards on four carries in the first half, Toussaint erupted for 235 yards in the second half and scored two TDs. He has 1,950 yards in eight games.

He'd finish the season with over 2,200 yards and 28 touchdowns. Between those numbers and his excellently soundtracked highlights, I thought he'd be the next great Michigan running back:

That wasn't to be, at least in large part for reasons outside his control, but when remembering where Toussaint came from...

It wasn't all flowers and 90-yard touchdowns for Toussaint, though. His dad—also named Fitzgerald Toussaint—ended up in jail after stabbing his ex-wife's boyfriend… at a football scrimmage. Nasty business.

...I'd say 32 career starts, graduating from U-M, and getting a shot to make an NFL roster constitutes a very successful college career.

Vincent Smith's profile started out with similar recounting of a tough upbringing in Pahokee, then mostly waffled between excitement about his highlights/fit in the scheme and trepidation about his size, which was the subject of an awkwardly written ESPN scouting report:

ESPN says Smith lacks size "on paper"—which uh what about real life too—and says he runs "low to the ground," as if he has a choice.

Michigan rounded out a three-man running back class with Cass Tech product Teric Jones, who recorded the fastest time at the Army combine after his junior year but didn't receive much at all in the way of recruiting hype. By the time he got to campus the coaches were already considering a position switch:

In fact, Michigan might be shooting Jones into lots of space as a slot receiver. Rodriguez said Jones was a slot receiver who "may also get reps at running back" at the signing day press conference, and Jones did have some nice receiving numbers as a junior: 24 catches for 306 yards.

Jones ended up playing special teams as a true freshman, bounced between running back and cornerback as the thin roster dictated need, then left the team and went on medical scholarship before the 2011 season after a sophomore-year knee injury.

If You Just Take Two Linemen...

...you might as well make them NFL linemen, and that's exactly what happened with U-M's 2009 O-line class of Taylor Lewan and Michael Schofield. Lewan, especially, was quite the steal; he was a total unknown until moving from defensive line to offensive line before his senior season, then vaulted into the top 300 recruits on all three recruiting services and played in the Under Armour AA Game in his first year playing the position. Michigan had a nice in with Lewan—his teammate at Chaparral High, Craig Roh, had been committed to U-M for months when Lewan decided to also head to Ann Arbor.

While this usually doesn't happen, Lewan's high school coach ended up giving the most accurate forecast of his player's potential:

“Michigan is getting, in my opinion, the steal of this year's recruiting class in the country,” Ragle said. “I know that's a bold statement to make, (but) this kid’s ability on the field won't be questioned. He's as good an athlete on the offensive line as I've ever seen.”

...

"He's as good athletically as any guy I have ever coached," Ragle said. "The thing that makes him so special is his upside when you think he's only been coached at the position for about eight months. But the one intangible that's most impressive is his nastiness --Taylor wants to burry [sic] someone on every play, and you can't coach that."

On point, Coach Ragle.

Schofield's rankings were in a similar range as Lewan's after a strong senior season. What stood out about him most was his athleticism—which translated to the college game, as he seamlessly transition from being Michigan's best pulling guard to a nimble pass-protector at tackle—and considering he's now 6'7" and 300+ pounds this is rather astounding:

In his first two years at Sandburg, Schofield ran the 110 high hurdles for the Eagles’ track team, winning a conference title his freshman year and finishing second his sophomore season. He also moved up to the varsity team for the state tournament during his sophomore year, finishing sixth in sectionals.

Unfortunately, there's no video of this, as the age of someone-on-a-smartphone-will-film-literally-anything hadn't hit yet.

So, with that exercise out of the way, who's ready to go over the 2010 class?

Sponsor note! If you're coming into town with a big group for, say, the Notre Dame game, your options are limited. You can drive a while, you can pay out the nose, or you can rent a whole dang house for about what it would cost for four to six hotel rooms at Gameday Housing. Hotel rooms don't come with yards to tailgate in and aren't within walking distance of the stadium, and they're all booked anyway.

Roy Manning is with it. Vine is the greatest.

Connolly on M. SBN's resident numbers-massager Bill Connolly has dropped ten items about Michigan's upcoming season. A Connolly post is always worth your time; he's very good at explaining what his numbers mean and is happy to deviate from them if he feels they're not capturing something. Michigan's not looking too good right now because of recent program history and that ugly recruiting gap that's coming home to roost right about now, but Connolly's like "eh":

That the Wolverines held steady at 20th overall last year is a positive sign, and I do think that there is some addition-by-subtraction going on in substituting a little explosiveness for a lot of efficiency on offense. They are still a few ifs away from a truly elite season, but I like their chances of getting to 10 wins overall, much more than the numbers do, anyway.

An interesting bit on the receivers:

Roy Roundtree and the receiver Devin Gardner combined for a rather awful 49 percent catch rate. Roundtree was all-or-nothing for his entire career, and Gardner was far too raw to make a significantly positive impact, and while the big-play ability could be missed (the two combined to average 18.0 yards per catch last year), the explosiveness-for-efficiency tradeoff could be welcome. Big plays are still a grave necessity, but Michigan still has Jeremy Gallon (16.9 yards per catch, 62 percent catch rate) and Drew Dileo (16.6, 67 percent) for that. To be sure, there will be bombs. They're built into the system. But Roundtree's and Gardner's catch rates were just too low; that Michigan ranked 21st in overall Success Rate+ despite the low completion rates is an incredibly encouraging sign of what may be to come.

Odoms met with Roger Horne, the director of food security initiatives at nonprofit Urban GreenWorks, and studied GreenWorks’ five urban gardens in Miami. Urban GreenWorks sells some of its urban-garden products to local vendors, something H.O.P.E. would like to do, too.

They’re hoping to build the garden just off 4th Street in Pahokee, between Barfield Highway and Lake Avenue.

“We want it to be in a place where people can see it,” Smith said.

(The article is a little old but I hadn't seen it yet.)

(Not our) walk-on down. Michigan State loses wide receiver AJ Troup for the season. While Troup didn't play last year, he was getting some hype as a potentially useful piece in State's Burbridge-and-the-handsless receiving corps after a 46-yard touchdown in the spring game.

If Glenn Robinson blows up like he says he will that'll help quite a bit, as the guy wants to be in the NBA and likely will be sooner rather than later.

In other basketball recruiting news that I'll probably repeat in a week or two when there's enough stuff in the slow-moving barge to assemble into a post, California wing Kameron Chatman says he will "probably" return to Ann Arbor for an official visit.

"My plan was to at least coach six more years," he said. "So that the 2015 class, that's the class we're recruiting now -- along with the 2014s -- I wanted to coach all those guys.

"That was sort of the plan we put in mind. Obviously you had to dot some 'I's' and cross some 'T's' and there was no rush, but I was really pleased we were able to work it out."

He'll be 66 when his new contract extension expires, FWIW, and will evaluate his status then. If Alexander and/or Jordan are still around then I'd expect an internal transition.

Saban talks actual football on ESPN. Nick Saban breaks down a few plays from the title game blowout for ESPN, and Smart Football translates. Instructive for Michigan fans since Michigan is moving to an Alabama-style offense.

This in particular reminded me of something Michigan got caught in:

S: “We picked up on the fact that they weren’t real sound in coverage here. Their inside linebacker has to flow over and take the tight-end but he actually has a run/pass conflict when we fake the ball at him.” — Translation: Notre Dame has eight defenders lined up with their hand in the ground on the goal line, with only three players at the second level, including Manti Te’o, the “inside linebacker” Saban refers to. At its simplest, the purpose of the play was to pull Te’o up with a run fake and then throw behind him. Saban makes clear that it was the coverage scheme that was an issue as much with Te’o's play here — it’s just a tough assignment — and he says that when they face play-action teams they try not to put their linebackers in positions like this. He then gets a little more specific about specifically how they attacked Te’o.

As soon as Kovacs started getting aggressive enough to beat the wingback to the outside and clean up before the play picked up ten yards, Air Force burned him over the top and would have had a 62-yard touchdown except the receiver fell down after about 30. Option football is mean, and Michigan probably shouldn't sign up to play an option team right after Alabama again, not that they'll play Alabama on purpose any time in the near future.

Paging Tom Rinaldi. Kid who named his tumor "Michigan" 1) needs a snappier name and 2) will be going to the Michigan-OSU game thanks to Brady Hoke, who hopes to make him miserable at it. Uncomfortable thought about that South Park episode in which Stan coaches a youth hockey team happening… now. Okay, now it's over.

Then, after Muschamp referred to Ohio State as “Ohio,” Muschamp deadpanned: “I’ve always been a Brady Hoke fan.”

If "Ohio" becomes, like, a nationwide thing people use to tweak The Ohio State University I think we need a parade for Hoke.

The worst scouting report ever. I don't know who Aaron Schatz is talking about here, but it's not Mike Martin:

Martin, a third-round pick in the 2012 draft, led all Titans defensive tackles last year with 8.5 hurries. That's surprising considering he's more of a classic nose tackle rather than a penetrating three-technique. Scouts considered Martin a blue-collar grinder whose best strength was his solid base. But in his first year in Tennessee, he was faster than advertised and showed a variety of pass-rush moves. Martin was considered a possible first-round pick until he really struggled during his senior year at Michigan. That was partly due to a scheme change, although oddly, the new scheme he struggled in was actually more similar to what he's playing now in Tennessee. He should be in line for a jump in playing time despite the signing of Sammie Lee Hill.

All of those bolded things are the opposite of true. The third bolded thing may be accurate if you only look at stats… for a nose tackle, which… who does that? And wait a minute right here.

Wait a minute.

This is a NOSE TACKLE who finished fourth on his team in tackles with 64. That is an incredible stat. He did this on a defense that had no high draft picks and completed an insane one-year turnaround. Nothing about this makes sense.

no tackles for this

This is the worst paragraph ever written. Not this one. That one. In the block quote. That one that asserts Mike Martin is a blue-collar guy whose main strength is holding up offensive linemen and that he was not an all-crushing force of nature as a senior who was hurt in the NFL draft by the fact that Michigan played him out of position out of necessity. "Really struggled." Okay guy.